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Topic: and here go the jerking knees!!!! (Read 9631 times)

Whoa! So China is really where the US was from about the mid 1900's? Massive economic growth, emerging middle class, massive energy consumption, massive pollution production, urban sprawl beginning in earnest, labor still being taken advantage of but rights movements emerging....

Hey! I thought that is what the liberal movements saved us from...and now they want to go back?

funny thing about china...they are using lots of oil and many tons of coal to fuel their economic boom. we, on the other hand......

China is also the world leader in wind and solar energy. Lack of internal coal and oil reserves is a weakness so they are moving quickly to sustainable fuels. They can do that because they don't have to wait until oil prices get high enough to make alternatives less expensive. With longer range planning, they can see that oil will get more expensive, so they can make a DECISION to move to alternatives now. In the process, they are capturing the export market for wind and solar installations worldwide.

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let me see if i understand this. rather than individual innovation and effort, we need some central planning run by the govt, so that we can compete with china? what do we do about all those little things that make us non-competitive? high labor costs, regulations, etc.? seems to me that planning would only be a small part of your equation?

Central planning as practiced in the USSR did not work. Micromanaging the economy is impossible from a central point. China watched the Russians and did not repeat their mistake. They are doing macro planning and letting markets make the millions of micro decisions necessary to carry out the plans. So individual innovation is still vital. The planning is used to determine what the problems are so that market mechanisms can solve them.

The US did the same thing in the 1950s. Read "Supercapitalism" by Robert Reich. The government worked with labor unions and big companies to accomplish a national agenda. Not the agenda of a few rich people. Eisenhower started the Interstate Highway system which was a huge boost to business productivity on a scale not practical before. China just announced a $1.5 trillion dollar budget over 5 years for infrastructure and research. We are being blown out of the water.

Eisenhower started the Interstate Highway system which was a huge boost to business productivity on a scale not practical before.

maybe he should have expanded the rail system? all those nasty cars driving all over the place might have been avoided....

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The government worked with labor unions and big companies to accomplish a national agenda.

and you think that worked out well?

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I don't think that China's rail system and their investment in infrastructure is a nice option created by forward thinking bureaucrats...it is a response to an incredible population in a city and moving those people and products around.

I'm pretty sure that they could just rely on their highways, they would. For the Chinese it isn't about saving gas and saving energy.

hey, when you have absolute control, you can shuffle the population any way you want. they did this once before and about 20 million people died. instead of hope and change, they got the great leap forward. but it's all good. it's the goal that counts.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

you seem to feel that anyone who makes more somehow owes something to everyone else. they didn't "receive something" they earned something.

. And it's the poor who do most of the fighting.

You may have noticed that China is kicking our butts economically. They are not a free enterprise economy. China has found a middle route where long term planning is done by government and those plans are executed using the market mechanism. And China is building a middle class at the same time as ours is collapsing. We are in the process of discovering that unregulated profit motive and no planning gets beat by the Chinese model. That really scares me. I think we need to get out act together and work as a society rather than for the benefit of a very few very rich folks at the top.

First, concerning the poor doing the most fighting, this was a falsehood perpertrated by the left in opposition to the war. Rangel also used it in his call for the draft. In a study by the Center for Data Analysis Report On National Security and Defense it was found that "The household income of recruits generally matches the income distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets"Also "We find that, on average, recruits tend to be much more highly educated than the general pub­lic "Also"We found that whites are one of the most pro­portionally represented groups?making up 77.4 percent of the population and 75.8 percent of all recruits"

Concerning the touting of China: Somethings afoot with the left. I live near Poughkeepsie,NY and we were just treated to almost the same rhetoric in our local newspaper by a noted lefty. I was having a deju vu moment. My only question is what are you people reading to think that China is so good.

it's not by accident that so many left wingers wear Mao and Che t-shirts.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

chinas oil consumption has been growing at about 8% a year. considerably faster than the US. in addition, china is drilling, making deals with oil companies including those who drill in the gulf, and they are mining and buying into mining companies. they are also making deals with countries like Australia, which just signed a huge export deal for coal with china.

we, on the other hand, are shutting down our rigs and our coal mines. does that seem smart?

your numbers are old.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

Ya know the biggest problem is we are now a democracy. Back in the day a bunch of smart fellers (aka the founding fathers) set up a republic. Back then we only got into wars if someone directly picked on us (the Brits). We kept our nose out of world affairs for the most part. Little or no trouble up until we decide states rights are no longer important but a big and over powering federal government is the need. Since then we have fought a civil war, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, Panama, Gulf War, Afghanistan, and back to Iraq. Also we decided who needs senators that are chosen by the states to represent them in the federal government the people need to have the say. We can go on with failed programs like social security, medicare, and so on to name some of the stuff we have failed at. We want to redistribute wealth i guess so the poor can buy goods made in china cause they got laid off by an employer that can't afford to keep them on cause his taxes went up. In the end we are the problem cause we were bought this load of bull hook line and stinker. I really don't think any of us truly trust our government and rightfully so as they try to regulate ever aspect of our life. I wonder though why a neighboring county over in WV is the poorest county in the US they vote democrat so the government pours money into there. Yet it's still poor cause the people haven't figured out one thing and one thing only nobody is gonna take care of self but self. So in summery i guess my rant is more about us perpetuating the idea of democracy and how great it is when truly the problem is that is allows the idiot with the most money to serve and not the man or woman who has the better ideas and is more qualified.

Actually, China is right around 4.3 times the size of the US (by population) so the actual "use" rate isn't 10 times (probably something more like twice-ish) - I'm sure a commie could use that in addition to impugn the private ownership of transportation; pesky freedoms always interfering with someone else's paradise on Earth. It also wouldn't surprise me if the cargo ships using fuel to bring inferior products from china are counted toward US consumption.Figures don't lie but liars can certainly figure.